The action comes after the developer failed to deliver 17 transit camp tenements for project-affected persons (PAPs) in Jogeshwari to the SRA, based on which it received additional construction rights for the Khar building.Nauzer Bharucha | TNN | January 12, 2017, 07:58 IST

MUMBAI: The Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) has ordered the builder of a luxury tower opposite Khar Gymkhana (right) to stop sale of flats for “fraudulently” obtaining and using more floor space index (FSI). It will also direct the Bandra sub-registrar not to register apartment sales in K Mordani Realty’s 20-storey tower on 16th Road, Khar, although it is learnt that the builder has already sold most of them.

The action comes after the developer failed to deliver 17 transit camp tenements for project-affected persons (PAPs) in Jogeshwari to the SRA, based on which it received additional construction rights for the Khar building. “The builder fraudulently obtained additional FSI by showing imaginary transit camps at Jogeshwari,” said SRA chief Vishwas Patil in last week’s order. He directed an inquiry against SRA engineers who passed the building plans.

Kumar Mordani, who started his firm in 2009, claimed he had all the approvals and there was only a delay in building tenements.

and describes himself as a “multifaceted entrepreneur”, told TOI: “I have all the approvals. There was a delay in procuring permissions to build the transit camps. We will finish building them and hand over the tenements to the SRA.”

The builder had initially showed the transit tenements as built on certain floors of the luxury tower but was later allowed by SRA officials to shift them to another plot at Majas in Jogeshwari.

Mordani was the first builder to exploit a little-known provision in the development control rule 33(14), which allowed higher FSI to a developer for constructing transit tenements on another plot and handing them over to the SRA free of cost.

In Mordani’s case, this unheard-of incentive permitted him to increase the height of his Khar building from the initial 12 floors to 20. In August 2013, TOI had reported how this controversial rule allowed Mordani to build 60,000 square feet on a narrow 6,000 sq ft plot or 10 times the plot area.

The SRA order observed, “The developer did not construct a single transit tenement at Majas. However, strangely, he obtained the full commencement certificate (CC) for the sale component (tower).”

Mordani, the report said, earlier obtained a building permission by showing transit tenements on the fourth, seventh, eighth, tenth and twelfth floors, as well as a balwadi, a welfare centre and a society office inside the Khar tower. “The developer, with an ulterior motive, submitted another proposal which shifted the transit tenements to Majas in Jogeshwari,” it said and added that the builder received an additional sale of 419 square metres in the Khar tower.

The order also castigates the SRA’s executive engineer and his staff, stating they showed “clear-cut negligence” for favouring the developer by processing the proposal to shift transit tenements from the Khar building to Jogeshwari. In 2012, the executive engineer found that common areas of the tower had been illegally merged with the apartments. The approved plan showed the flat size of 850 sq ft but the builder was selling the area by showing 3,000 sq ft.

“The present case is an ideal example of gross violation of FSI in the name of providing transit tenements. The deputy chief engineer should propose a departmental inquiry against those engineers who passed the plans hurriedly and without receiving the transit tenements from the builder,’’ said the order. It also ordered the executive engineer to ascertain the irregularities and take necessary action.